VIDEO: Holmwood Technical ready for Digicel Grand Prix Finale

All roads lead to the National Stadium in Kingston on Saturday, March 10 for the Grand Finale of the 2018 Digicel Grand Prix Athletics Championship.

The Digicel Grand Prix Athletics Championship is a five-series development meet for high schools, which comprises four regional meets and a Grand Finale - the GC Foster Classics.

With what transpired in the four regional meets - Eastern Championships, Western Championships, Corporate Area Championships and Central Championships - the Grand Finale is worth going miles to see.

The Digicel Grand Prix events are the 100m, 200m, 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m, 4x400m and medley relays, as well as long jump, high jump and discus.

For the Grand Prix Series, athletes are placed in two age categories. For the males (Class 1 athletes compete in one age category, while Class 2 and Class 3 athletes complete in the other age category) and for females (Class 1 and 2 compete in one age category and Class 3 and 4 in the other age category).

This means that only the fastest time in a Grand Prix event in each age category at each of the four regional meets automatically qualify for the Grand Finale. As a result, the four automatic winners in each of the 10 Digicel Grand Prix event from the four regional meets will be joined by the next four best to compete in the Grand Prix Finale.

At the Grand Finale, school teams (boys and girls) will vie for the title of Digicel Grand Prix champion and $1 million each towards gym equipment or development of their school’s training facilities.

There will also be an overall second and third place cash prizes of $500,000 and $200,000 respectively.

Record-breaking athletes at the Grand Prix Finale will be rewarded with cash for their schools.

Digicel will pay $25,000 for each championship record and $50,000 for each national junior record.

In addition, Digicel will reward every athlete who qualifies to run at the Grand Prix Finale with $5,000 each for their school.

Among the schools that will be represented at the Grand Finale on March 10 is Holmwood Technical.

The Christiana-based school has been rebuilding for the last two years, and the athletes performances at Central Championships at G C Foster College earlier this week showed that they will be a force to reckon with at the Grand Finale.

Holmwood Technical lost Central Championships by 41.50 points to Edwin Allen following a ding-dong battle between the two on Tuesday's final day in the girls' championship.

Central Championships was the fourth and final regional meet of the Digicel Grand Prix Series.

The Loop team was at Holmwood Technical and the camp is ready to take the Grand Finale by storm.

Watch the video edited by Shawn Barnes.

Get the latest local and international news straight to your mobile phone for free: